


The Kissing Parts

by lustfulpasiphae (miraphora)



Series: Hawk of the Marches [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Biting, F/M, Marking, Penis In Vagina Sex, Shameless Smut, Tattoos, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:30:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraphora/pseuds/lustfulpasiphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title of this part of HotM shamelessly references The Princess Bride. Contained herein are vignettes from the months following In Your Heart Shall Burn, as Mira and Cullen grow closer and begin a relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ne Me Quitte Pas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mira says “don’t leave me” long before she ever says “I love you.”

Mira says “don’t leave me” long before she ever says “I love you.”

She loves too easily, and always has, but as long as she doesn’t say it, she can deny it. It is scant protection when she is surrounded by companions who have become dear to her, who go to war at her side. When his eyes meet hers across the War Table, and he inclines his head in acknowledgement of her orders, when his lips curl with the slightest hint of a smile at the corner, her heart sings: “ _mon chevalier, mon coeur!_ ” Not yet “ _mon amour_ ” but her traitorous heart croons “ _bientôt_.”

When she was eight years old, her mother--golden curls, golden eyes, gentle callused hands, guiding her very small hands on a bow, on a curry comb, on the hilt of a small quick deadly blade, a lyric voice filled with stories and also solemn warnings, a voice that had taught her to love and to care and also to fight and to protect--went to war. She took Matthieu with her. 

Matthieu with his mother’s sleek dark hair, tanned olive face with its easy smile, and his father’s brown eyes, his chevalier’s sword-- _from my grandpere, mon canard, it is called Joyeuse, the Joyful blade, and you must never wield it for aught that is evil._ Matthieu who was their father’s heir and who had taken to Giselle like an orphaned duck when the Bann Trevelyan finally remarried--another frail lady with thin Orlesian blood who would surely also succumb to childbirth, the Trevelyan cousins whispered, sneered, and never mind that Giselle Aramina Threnhold was first cousin to the Viscount of Kirkwall and a blooded warrior in her own right, and granddaughter to one of the foremost chevaliers of the Blessed Age.

Mira remembers most of her mother’s last words. She rescued them from the midden heap of memory and carefully treasured them when the Templar came with her brother’s, her mother’s, her  _grandpere_ ’s sword in his hands and presented it to her father with stilted regrets couched in strong-armed threats--it was after that she began to hoard and collect memories, to treasure pretty stones, fallen feathers of a hawk, pressed flowers--a habit she kept until she was put into the dark and Elyse came for her and after that she learned to travel with her memories in her mind, a treasure she could carry within her anywhere. 

_“Loyalty, ma petit faucon. When family call for your aid you must answer. Even if it hurts your heart.”_

_“Maman, mais je suis ton coeur!”_

_A soft laugh. “So you are, mon coeur. Mind Mi’nadas while I am gone, now.”_

After that Bann Trevelyan was a man twisted by rage and pain and paranoia, and barely a father, and sometimes Mira is able to admit to herself that she became an orphan that day. She made her own family later, when Elyse came into her life with her fire and her healing hands and her braids and her beads and her clanking, clattering bracelets and her raucous Fools and her adventures. Elyse who was mother and sister and friend to a girl without a mother. Elyse who gave her rebellious heart direction and purpose.

She is twenty-seven when Elyse leaves her. It is no easier to comprehend the loss at that age when she wakes one morning to find the phylactery dark and cold and empty. In her darker moments she’s not sure which is worse: the grudging return of an heirloom sword in the hateful hands of an enemy, or a charred circle in the earth to mark the passing.

When her heart seizes for the first time at his smile, she knows she will lose him as well. She still remembers the way of it: of keeping memories that will travel with her. She collects them like pretty stones, like fallen feathers of a hawk, like pressed flowers. The first time he says her name, the first time his lips touch hers and the second, the way he touches her, the cocky smile when he wins at chess; she is greedy as a dragon with her hoard.

She knows she will lose him, as she has lost everything and everyone else. But this time she will be ready.

She says “don’t leave me” long before she ever says “I love you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> “her heart sings: “mon chevalier, mon coeur!” Not yet “mon amour” but her traitorous heart croons “bientôt.” -- my knight, my heart, my love, soon (This is hands down one of my favorite sentences I’ve ever written because of the rhythm that gallops steadily into that smug “bientôt.”)
> 
> mon canard -- my duck (a pet name for a child)
> 
> ma petit faucon -- my little falcon
> 
> Maman, mais je suis ton coeur! -- Mama, but I am your heart!


	2. Seduction Stratagem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only choice she plans on making today is behind all three of the doors ahead of her, and she’s not leaving until he belongs to her.

It’s late afternoon when she makes her way to his tower. The route through Solas’ rotunda is quicker, closer, but she doesn’t want to be observed by her companions, her passage remarked--she takes the bailey instead, towards the stables and up the stone steps, winding along the inner wall to the top of the battlements.

Her prowling is habit, and the guards are accustomed to seeing her, but she doesn’t entertain the delusion that they aren’t perfectly aware of what is going on since the interrupted kiss. She doesn’t mind talk among the ranks of her army--she has much more trust in the simple interest of soldiers than she does in the prying speculation of the nobles who crowd her Hall. Cullen is another matter. He has a rapport with his troops, but is ever respectful and observant of the proprieties of the rank and file military life.

She would be lying if she claimed not to harbor concern--that the prospect of gossip and speculation might cause him to set her away from him, to build a wall into the gap that he had bridged with what he might now see as a passionate blunder. Well, she has no intention of letting him stew--if he should be so inclined. She has already wasted plenty of time with her own stewing--and her time is a precious commodity, a limited resource she must husband with care. The longer this war continues, the longer Corypheus remains at large, orchestrating her fate, the clearer this fact becomes to her.

/  _The choice sings within you._  /

Well, that may be the case, but the only choice she plans on making today is behind all three of the doors ahead of her, and she’s not leaving until he belongs to her.

* * *

 

There are soldiers and agents clustered around the desk by the window when she enters. Mira leans against the stone wall, hands braced behind her back, watching the man at their center take reports and give commands. There’s a small wrinkle between his brows as he leans into the desk with emphasis, gesturing at the maps spread over the crowded surface. He looks a bit tired around the eyes, as he nearly always does, and his jaw is shadowed with stubble, but she can hear the steady purpose in his measured, velvet tenor.

If she has her way, and she intends to, she’ll make sure he sleeps for once tonight.

She is incredibly stealthy when she wants to be, but she’s not trying to hide--is in fact wearing her eye-catching dark blue doublet because she is inordinately fond of the way it offsets the copper lights in her hair. Presently, Cullen’s amber eyes glimpse her through the ranks of his gathered agents. She likes the crinkle of the crows feet at the corners, the way his gaze warms, even when his lips maintain their impassive expression. He has such gorgeous eyes.

He smoothly wraps up the last bits of business--not abruptly, but firmly. She can tell that he has changed the planned course of his meeting from the very light drumming of his fingertips on the edge of the desk--he does it when he’s thinking tactically, on his feet, making adjustments in the heat of the moment to any of his long-term stratagems. She’s watched him do it during War Room sessions, and during chess games with Dorian, where the match of their formidable wits requires a mental fluidity that her own artless, reactionary play-style rarely evokes.

Dismissed, the soldiers filter out through all three doors, most of them saluting her, some going so far as to smile. There’s no malice in any of them, and she is glad to see it. The Inquisition could never be compared to her Fools, but she knows that she is more present among the rank and file than her advisors expect. This is a style of leadership that she and the Iron Bull agree on wholeheartedly, and she thinks sometimes that it’s one of the few things this whole ordeal hasn’t changed about her.

She maintains her position by the door, the slightest smile curving her lips, making her golden eyes glow as he prowls towards her, taking the door and shutting it tight, sliding the lock home. There are two more doors into the tower, but one leads to Solas’ rotunda, and she knows that the other has already been locked with excessively stealthy care from the outside--she recognizes the sound of thief’s tools when she hears them, even if Cullen took no notice. It swells her heart a little, the loyalty and care that his troops have for him, and her smile broadens.

“Maker, I’m glad to see you.” He braces a gloved hand on the stone by her head, his mouth softening and he leans in to rest his forehead against hers.

Any worries that he might push her away dissipate with a clench of emotion around her heart. The shadows around his eyes are darker when he has them shut, and there is a faint violet tinge to his eyelids. She tilts her chin up, just enough to brush the tip of her nose against his.

His laugh is nothing but a soft puff of breath, and his eyes slide open, all limpid brandy, as he pulls back the scarcest distance and cradles the side of her face gently, tracing the broad sweep of her cheekbone.

“I’m glad to see you as well. That you would make time for me.” She says the last bit with a hint of flippancy, but it has the unfortunate ring of truth.

His eyes are anchored on hers, the faintest quizzical wrinkle between his brows--just because he doesn’t like the Game doesn’t mean he’s deaf to subtext. His thumb traces down the angle of her cheek, along the curve of her jaw, feathering across her chin and the tattoos spearing down toward her throat.

“While I am able, I will always make time for you.”  _While my body yet draws breath and my heart beats, I will be yours._  The things he thinks and the things he says to her are so rarely aligned--he is poignantly aware that they are too much, too soon, that if she knew how long ago his want for her had manifested she would be shocked.

Her pupils flare, her lips parting the barest amount against his stroking thumb. The tip of her tongue flicks against the leather, her lips pursing in a soft kiss. The gloves are old, worn, comfortable, thin at the fingertips, and he can feel the hot warmth of her mouth. Heat blooms up the back of his neck, creeping toward the tips of his ears.

He strokes his thumb to the side, tilting her face and lowering his head, lips rubbing across hers in a slow, sensual caress. Her pleased little hum of his name against his lips sends a shiver down his spine, and he deepens the kiss.

Her tongue-tip traces along the seam of his lips, tickling at the groove of his scar, and he feels her hands at his shoulders, knows that she has threaded her fingers into the ruff of his surcoat by the way his cuirass shifts. He has been in armor every time they’ve managed to find a quiet moment together, and he’s growing exceedingly impatient with the barriers. His fingertips tingle with the need to feel her skin, his arms yearn for the weight of her curled in them.

There’s another tug at his shoulders, and Mira pulls away with a little sucking bite to his lower lip. Her eyes are a deep, mellow gold, and color mantles her cheeks.

“You know, I’ve never seen you out of your kit,” she murmurs throatily with the barest hint of an Orlesian drawl coming out.

He’s heard her speak the language before, usually employing it for cursing--as far as his largely untrained ear can discern, at least--and has wondered where the accent comes from. Her mother? A nursemaid? Sometimes he realizes there is so very little that he knows about her, her past, and yet, his foolish heart knows that it yearns for her.

He smiles down at her wryly, feeling his scar pull. “My lady, are you a mind-reader as well?”

Mira feels a spark of pleasure at this comment, evidence that his desire has kept somewhat apace of hers. She looks at him from beneath her lashes, her teeth sinking into her lower lip speculatively. She knows very well where she intends the evening to end--the question is how much liberty he will allow her.

“I may be many things, but that is certainly not one of them.” She gives him a slow-burning smile, one of her hands resting with intent on the right buckle of his breastplate, where it disappears below the protective collar of the gorget. The tips of his ears are getting redder, and she can’t hold in a rich chuckle. “Cullen. Is it forward of me to ask that you allow me to remove all of--this?” She raps her knuckles lightly against his chest.

Her voice is all Marcher frankness now. He can feel the back of his neck burning and his heart beating irregularly. He is hardly a Chantry virgin, has had lovers, though not in quite some time, not since-- His hesitation, he realizes with dismay, is rooted firmly in his lack of knowledge of her. The Free Marches are notoriously independent, and her skill with the bow, her ease in battle make him certain that she was never raised only to be a simpering lady, but what that means as far as her expectations of him, of this relationship, he has no idea.

He realizes that he has let his silence drag on too long when she settles back onto her heels, the hand on his breastplate beginning to pull away. “My--Mira.” He takes her hand in his before she can make any further withdrawal. “It’s not forward at all. But I believe it’s very important that we both understand what it is that you are, or are not, asking.” He squeezes her hand gently, realizing his tone is so grave and serious as to be cold. “Maker. What I mean is--”

Her fingers flex a bit in his, not to escape, just returning his squeeze, but her gold eyes are on his, suddenly calculating. There is a slightly bitter twist to her lips, and doubt at the corners of her eyes. “Would it bother you to know that I am not a virgin? That I’ve had lovers?” Her chin tilts up in challenge.

Maker’s breath, but she is merciless. It certainly answers the question of how to proceed, though. His lips compress and he extricates his hand from hers, lowering his gaze as he begins tugging at the fingertips of his gloves to loosen them.

She doesn’t retreat, even without his anchoring hand, but she doesn’t reach out for him either. He can feel her eyes on him like a brand. “What are you doing?”

He shoots her a hooded look, exasperated with himself for not knowing how to communicate with her, and with her for being so Maker-blessed impertinent. “As I am certain I have told you before, I come from very common folk. Farmers. Fereldan,” he drawls it out. The fitted leather of his glove releases one hand to the air, and he stretches his fingers, rotates his wrist, hearing the soft pop of battered joints.

He doesn’t miss the way her eyes fix on his hand, a curious thrill going through him at the hungry look on her face. He wonders if she realizes how transparent she can be sometimes. Maker guide him, what is he getting himself into?

“As such, I am rather less familiar with the mating rituals of the nobility than you might be.” He chooses his phrasing deliberately, sees her mouth kick up at the corner, and is vindicated by her humor--and his own. The other glove comes off, finally, and his skin tingles, oversensitive as it sometimes is after long confinement. He reaches out, eyes on hers, strokes his fingertips along the tattoo above her brow, traces the line of it down her temple to her cheek, and cups her face against his bare palm, fingers threading back into her hair. Her eyes are incandescent.

He steps closer, repeats his earlier caresses with his other hand, now with his skin on hers, the pad of his thumb tracing her full lower lip from the faint ink bisecting it to the corner, down, down over her jaw and tracing the thrum of the pulse in her throat. She is coiled tight, her whole body singing with anticipation as he inclines his head, the rough caress of his lips across her cheek to her earlobe a torment.

“But I swear this to you,” he continues in a soft husking purr. “There is nothing you could do or be that would erase my desire for you.”

A shudder travels through her. Her hands come up, wrapping around his wrists, callused fingertips stroking along the blue veins. For a few moments he is lost in the softness of her moans, the way her hands tighten on his wrists as his lips caress her throat, his tongue tracing idle patterns, the barest hint of teeth nipping.

Her hands become more insistent, and he pulls back with an apology on his lips--but she is grinning at him, her gold eyes a bit glassy with desire. “You are very good with your mouth, Commander,” she comments teasingly, “but I must insist. The armor goes.”

 _Maker guide him._   

Her hands slide up over the curve of his breastplate, fingering the leather buckles again. She tilts her head.

He arches a brow questioningly, curls his hand around hers. “Do you know how to--”

She chews the inside corner of her lip, a little frown between her brows, studying the joints of his armor as though they are a puzzle to be solved. Her hands slip from beneath his, push under the surcoat, tug experimentally, find it unattached. She pushes it back off his shoulders, circles around him to tug it down his arms.

She is careful with it, but grins mischievously when she swirls it around the shoulders of the body form near his desk, the one riddled with dagger wounds.

It feels odd to stand passively and watch her, wait on her moves, feel her seeking hands investigate this metal carapace around his flesh. Her expression is relaxed, her mind on her task. Thoughts flicker across her features, her lips. He finds himself watching her mouth most of all, the thoughtful quirk, the furtive chewing at the corner.

She works logically from outer layers inward, finding the buckles for the pauldrons, tugging--strangely impersonal in her absorption--at each of his arms in turn so that he lifts them, giving her access to the straps around his biceps. Then the shoulder straps, where they lay over the gorget and cuirass. She takes care with the armor, letting the jointed plates fall correctly, settling each pauldron over the padded bars of the stand by his desk.  

The gorget comes next, her knuckles brushing his neck as she sways close to him, to get a better view of what her hands are doing. He reaches out without thinking, steadying her with a hand on her hip. Her eyes flick up to his and a smile curves her lips, before she returns to easing the leather strap back on one side of his neck, then the other. She pulls the halves of the collar away from him, sinks back to her heels, braces the pieces against her hip and works the straps back together so that it holds its form.

There is a sort of ritual to donning--and doffing--armor. Each piece must go on in the correct order, must be secured, must fall in the proper way, to protect the vulnerable flesh beneath. Mira feels a strange intimacy in performing this ritual, moreso even than removing a lover’s clothes. She looks up, standing squarely in front of Cullen, her hands on the buckles of his cuirass, pulling it loose, holding it steady while he ducks out from the shells of his armor, revealing the dark leather of the gambeson beneath, and meets his amber eyes, looking for...something.

She has no trouble bearing the weight of the breastplate, though it is by far the most unwieldy portion--she has a thicker frame than Cassandra, who goes armored in equal measure to Cullen--but he leans in with a helpless smile, stealing a kiss, and taking it from her without a word, carrying it to the rack and settling it. She follows him as though bound by a thread that tugs her in his wake, earning a startled look when he turns to find her on his heels.

“Maker. You need a bell.” He says it without thinking, slightly abstracted.

Mira smirks archly, sways against him, her arms looping about his neck, her mouth suddenly very close to his ear--he realizes how exposed he is to her, without the surcoat. “But then my prey would hear me...coming,” she breathes, and nips his earlobe sharply.

He gives a strangled “Maker,” arms closing around her, his hands grasping her hips and pulling her flush against him. She is perfect--her body aligned to his, the crush of her breasts against his chest. Perfect--and maddening. Her hips rock against him, and he swears fervently under his breath, seizing her mouth in a consuming, searing kiss.

“Cullen.”

The way she gasps his name into his demanding mouth makes him harden painfully, his hands pressing to the small of her back as he grinds against her.

“Fuck. Cullen.” Her hand fists in the hair at the nape of his neck and she arches, one leg anchored around his for leverage.

The burn of arousal is a raging blaze, out of control. If he had any lingering concerns that this was not the direction they were taking, that she didn’t understand what she was asking of him, or her own desires, they are burnt to ashes by the molten heat of her tongue stroking between his lips, thrusting, stroking the roof of his mouth and then retreating from his answering assault.

Her nails rake lightly down the back of his neck, and she stops at his shoulders, fingers digging into the leather of his gambeson, before walking down the front of his shoulders, to the laces at his chest, tugging and loosening determinedly.

Cullen works his mouth down her throat, to the collar of her doublet, sucking, and barely stops himself from sinking his teeth in to mark her. He pulls away with a ragged breath, shuddering. His hands curl around her shoulders, fingers tightening when she makes a sound of frustration at the abandonment of his mouth,

“Maker’s mercy. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes shoot open and she tucks her chin down in consternation, her lips swollen and cheeks flushed. “What?” Her fingers still themselves in the tangle of his laces.

“I--” He gently rubs the ball of his thumb across a faint, already fading strawberry mark on her throat. “I nearly left a mark.”

Her brows quirk. “Andraste wept. Is that all?” She splays her hands against his chest, pushing slightly. Her leg is still coiled around his, and she squeezes a little, applying just enough pressure to bend his knee towards her, to demonstrate, for a moment, that she could take him down to the ground, if she had a desire or a need to do so. “You’re not going to hurt me, Cullen. So please, for the love of the Maker, get us out of these blighted clothes so you can ravage me! You can bite me wherever you like, I promise.”

Her voice is exasperated, but it sends a jolt straight through him--and another flush of heat along the back of his neck.

“Forgive me. I’m not--I didn’t expect--” She cradles his face, fingertips rubbing at his stubble, thumbs pressed side by side over his lips to still his words. The corners of his eyes crinkle in sudden amusement at the absurdity, and he takes her hands, kisses each of the palms, lingering perhaps a moment longer over her left hand, as though his kiss might soothe or heal the Mark.

Mira’s heart squeezes a little, at the tenderness of it. She leans up, gives him a quick, soft kiss. “Please take me to bed, Commander.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on twitter and tumblr @lustfulpasiphae


	3. Tempo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s like a Chantry choir with all her sounds and sighs, he wants to get on his knees and worship her.

They manage to undress, Mira cursing their leathers, the clasps, the buckles on her ornate boots. His mouth is starved for her kisses, for the gasps and moans and begging sounds she makes when he touches her. He could take her there, on the desk--Maker’s mercy her cunt is so wet, so clutching tight around his fingers, there’s no earthly way he’ll make it up the ladder in this state.

Her mouth tears from his, her nails pricking his shoulders. “Cullen. Ladder.”

He groans--this is his penance. He will bear it, if he must, if it is the price he must pay for this bliss. She is laughing, damn her--he crooks his fingertips and silences that easily enough, savoring her ragged gasp. She’s like a Chantry choir with all her sounds and sighs, he wants to get on his knees and worship her--his thirty-summers-old knees interject to remind him that if they touch the stone floor he’ll never move again--

Cullen scoops her into his arms with a curse, groaning when she throws her legs around his hips and traps his cock between their bellies. An intrigued, startled sound of pleasure escapes Mira and she hitches up against him, her slick cunt splitting obscenely around the curve of him, her arms holding tight to his shoulders to give her leverage. 

“Maker!” 

She laughs again, rocking against him like that, rubbing the tight little nub between her labia against the ridge of his cock. Her breath is hot on his ear when she leans in, “This would be much easier in your bed.”

He presses his forehead hard to hers, trying to get control of his thundering heart. “I assure you, I would most ardently like to drop your wanton rear right onto my bed and leave you there.” His amber eyes blink open, hazed and unable to focus on hers this close. “But I am wholly incapable of doing anything until you have--” his breath catches sharply as she stops. “Maker’s breath.”

Her fingers comb through the curls at the nape of his neck. Her eyes are lowered, hips still, though he is throbbing against her. “Am I too much?”

He grits his teeth for a moment, jaw pulsing, and lifts her a bit, adjusting her weight so that he can hold her and--Maker’s bleeding mercy--free himself from the molten heat of her. Her fingertips are petting at the loose curls at his nape, and she--feels different in his arms, like she is poised against him to flee, even though she’d be hard-pressed to escape him in this position. He looses a gusting sigh, his balls aching with desire, but at least his brain is still functioning at a sufficient level to chide him.  _Perhaps suggesting your lady love is a wanton degenerate is not the best work you’ve done, you worthless clod._  

He strokes the small of her back, pressing a kiss to her jaw. “Never, love. You give my mental faculties altogether too much credit if you believe that I can coordinate walking with you pressed against me, though.”

Her lips curl at the corner and she peeks at him from beneath her lashes. “I’ve seen you at the chessboard--I have every confidence in your abilities.” Her hips make a furtive motion against his.

His hand presses tighter to the small of her back and he takes a step, two, eyes locked with hers. The scarred corner of his mouth kicks up in a slight smirk. “I’ll admit--it’s easier when you’re not half-frozen and unconscious.”

Her eyes widen owlishly. “Blight take Varric anyway. He said you had, but--”

Cullen chuckled. “Little did I know, during that merciless trek through the snow--” A part of his mind is appalled that he can jest about it, and part of him is filled with gratitude in equal measure--that he can jest with her, that she is warm, alive, whole, unharmed in his arms. That she is his. “--that we would find ourselves here.” His eyes darken, and he presses a kiss to her forehead, unwontedly gentle for the mirth. “In this moment.”

The ladder is behind her. He steadies his stance, convinced that he could hold her forever, secure in his arms, bear her weight, take her burdens. She is warm and solid, all long bones and soft curves, and strength--she is not frail, and he is so embarrassingly grateful for that. That she is a warrior, and herself, fierce and capable. 

Mira watches the thoughts flickering through his eyes--wondering what he sees when he looks at her--and knowing, at the quick tightening at the corners of his eyes, that the Mark on her hand is never far from his mind. “Cullen.”

He kisses her, tenderly seizing her lips, giving her all of the love that he will not speak. Her fingertips massage against his scalp, down the column of his neck, caressing the bunched muscles of his shoulders. Maker, he should be grateful that he can hold her at all, that this is a good day, that he is not a trembling wreck--

He drags his lips down her throat, lingering over the mark blooming on her tender skin, giving it a kiss, partly in apology, partly because of the way her breath hisses with pleasure and she shifts against him. He keeps one hand at the middle of her back, slips the other between them, eases a finger into her cunt again, stroking, the pad of his thumb finding her pearl, circling it firmly, his mouth warm on her breast. He is so hungry for her...

Mira arches her back with a keening sound of pleasure, hands reaching back and wrapping tightly around the rails of the ladder. Her ankles hook around at the small of Cullen's back, heels anchored against his ass to reel him in closer. He resists, though, his scarred mouth brushing a line of fire from the peak of one aching breast to the other, his lips and tongue and teeth shaping her flesh, raking against the nipple agonizingly. 

His finger curls towards his palm in a beckoning gesture, the pad rasping against ridged, spongy tissue and sending a jolt of pure electricity from her cunt to the base of her spine, zinging up along the core of her until it explodes at the back of her skull--she cries out in sudden pain and he stops dead for a startled moment before his hands are skating up her arched back to steady her, and he pulls her in close against his chest. 

"Maker's breath, are you alright?!"

“Fucking Andraste.” Mira buries her face against his shoulder, her whole body burning with embarrassment, the back of her head throbbing in a discordant counterpoint to the ache in her cunt. She feels Cullen’s cock twitch against the crease of her ass, and a snort of laughter escapes her before she can halt it. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you!” she mumbles against the muscular join of his shoulder and neck.  

He lets her slide down until she’s anchored more securely on his hips and gently works a warm hand up the back of her neck, fingertips stroking into the sweat-dampened hair at the nape. He braces himself--sweet Andraste, the feel of him flexing in the circle of her thighs, his stance widening--and tenderly urges her back, to lean into the hands cupped about her neck and the mid-point of her back. 

Her face is still burning, she knows, but she forces herself to meet his gaze head-on, her hands linked behind his neck. The scarred side of his mouth is kicked up in that smile that’s mostly a roguish grin, his amber eyes meltingly tender--and at the moment, apologetic. 

“This damned ladder, darling. Forgive me, I should have been more careful.”

Mira’s not sure she’ll ever grow accustomed to the way his voice crawls into her chest and thrums around her heart like the purr of a large cat. An answering grin, sheepish, her blush still heated, makes its way across her face. “I had every confidence you would make me see stars, Commander.” Her voice is husky and a little piqued from the struggle to keep in a laugh at the awfulness of the line.

Cullen’s hands flex against her, and he chuckles, arms bunching as he reels her back upright, so their lips are inches apart. His gaze sharpens hungrily as the motion forces her hips to roll against his, the core of her still wet and hot against him. “Perhaps not quite so literally, this time, hm?” His words gust across her lips, nose nuzzling against hers as he slants his mouth and shuts his eyes, kissing her covetously. 

She gets caught up in the suede rasp of his lips against hers, tonguing the ridge of his scar, feeling the rumbling subterranean moans locked in his chest, unconsciously rocking her hips against him, feeling the heated press of his cock against her ass, painting her skin with the slick of his precum. She bites at his lower lip, a little sharp, feeling her belly tighten at his swift intake of breath, soothes it with her tongue, dipping into his mouth to tangle with his and invite it back, curling, tugging, to hers. The broad hand at the center of her back rubs in a long line down the groove of her spine to squeeze a handful of her ass, massaging and giving a pinch that forces her to grind down, until he is slotted along the dripping seam of her cunt, her pearl couched flutteringly against the root of his cock.

Her sharp sound is muffled against his devouring mouth and plundering tongue, and her nails prick into his shoulders, feeling the muscles bunched--but quivering with strain. She sucks at the thick, sinuous squirm of his tongue as she pulls back, parting their mouths with a whining breath. 

He makes a sound of protest. “Maker, come back here, damnit.” His broad hand slips lower, his thumb pressing into her cunt and rubbing against the back wall of her slick channel. It’s not as electrifying as his previous penetrating caress, but her hips wrench forward all the same, forcing a deeper plunge and a sobbing breath from her throat. 

It also unbalances them, and he staggers forward a step, the hand at her neck releasing her to reach blindly for the rail of the ladder, their hipbones colliding and his hand splaying, thumb still buried in her cunt, to cup his fingers around her ass. The sudden sharp pressure of his grip shoots through her womb and she screams, her thighs crushingly tight around his hips, her cunt spasming and clutching around his thumb, her slick juices gathering in the palm of his hand.

His heart is thundering in his chest, his pupils blown wide, as he stares down at Mira, the aftershocks of her sudden orgasm pulsing against his hand. Her cheeks are splotched with color, wet with tears? sweat? below her lashes. He’s never seen anything so incomprehensibly, heart-shatteringly beautiful in his life. 

“Mira.” He breathes her name, the pad of his thumb beginning a slow, soothing circular stroking against the inner walls of her channel.

She makes a pained noise and struggles against him, her hips pulling away, and he stops. “Stop--I can’t--” 

Mira can hardly hear her own voice for the rushing sound of blood in her ears. His touch is too much on the heels of that rough, powerful, clutching pleasure, and she becomes a bit frantic trying to escape his arms. 

Cullen frees her from the grip of his fingers, trying to be gentle, to calm her before she injures herself. “Dearest, love, here, wait a moment” he is murmuring nonsense, his hand boosting her up a bit and away, setting her down on her feet--but he doesn’t release his grip on the ladder, because he may honestly collapse at this point.

Her legs are trembling, and she leans weakly back against the ladder. He relaxes a bit, that she isn’t fleeing in earnest, that he has a moment to gather his scattered wits and try to tamp down the throbbing agony of his arousal long enough to soothe her. What an absolute mess he keeps making of things, savaging her like a brute.

Mira presses a hand flat to her breastbone as though trying to still her galloping heart, tilts her head back--carefully this time--against the rungs of the ladder, her yellow eyes opening to narrow molten gold slits. She focuses on breathing, getting the feeling back in her legs, as she stares at Cullen’s flushed and aggrieved face. His lower lip is a little swollen from where she bit it, and his cock--her eyes flick down beneath her lashes. Sweet song of the Fade, his cock is weeping with need, dusky with blood, glistening along the curved length with her juices.

“Cullen.”

He lifts a hand to touch her face, feels the tacky stretch of her fluids on his skin and halts himself self-consciously. She feels like she can see right down into his soul through those light-swallowing pupils, the thin ring of burnt amber like the heat of a forge. She curls a still-trembling hand around the back of his, feeling the knot from an old break, bringing it to her lips, tongue lapping along the well of his palm--a perversion of a courtly kiss that she revels in--over the fleshy swell at the base of his thumb, the Lover’s Seat, tongue-tip giving special attention to the sword callus there, and then dragging up the length of the digit to the tip, before sucking it between her lips, tasting her own pungent salt and copper tang.

The expression on his face shatters, his eyes sliding shut. His fingers twitch reflexively as she places a gentle kiss against his cleaned palm and presses it to her cheek. 

“I’m terribly clumsy, you know.” They aren’t the words she wants to say--those are locked tight in her chest still. She smiles, her cheek curving into his hand, trying to lighten the moment with self-deprecation. 

He shakes himself like a wet mabari, giving a soft huff of laughter, and opens his eyes again to treat her to a wry glance. His arousal hasn’t flagged a bit, but he’s got better control of it--she can see it in his shoulders and the tilt of his head, which is much cockier when he’s not wrecked with feeling. “Clumsier than me, you mean? I would hardly credit it.” 

“Mmm. You’re perfect. I just got a bit carried away--too much all at once.” She admits it freely--comfortable trading a bit of her own dignity for his peace of mind. She reaches out with her right hand, the unMarked one, and strokes the center of his chest, petting the fine pelt that lightly furs his pale skin and trails down the centerline of his torso to the thatch of curls around his still-weeping cock. She would like to be pressed against him again, now that she doesn’t feel like she’s breaking into a million pieces, but the ladder is still at her back and she is damned if she’ll let the tempo build again before they are near a soft, horizontal surface. At this rate, she’s anticipating riding him at a gallop to a quick, heart-stopping finish and then indulging in a long drowsy cuddle before perhaps trying again later for something more prolonged and tender.

Goose-flesh pebbles his shoulders and raises the hairs along his arms as she rakes a nail against one of his nipples. He bites a growl off between his teeth and tries to surge forward for her, but she tenses her arm, muscle cording. “Mira.” Her name is a warning growl.

She smirks at him, having to tilt her chin up a bit because of her slouched posture. “Up the ladder, Commander. You’re the one who made your bed in an attic, and now you must lie in it.”

She turns, grasping the highest rung she can reach, and begins climbing. Below her there is a muttered prayer and a groan. The smile on her lips is positively wicked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on twitter and tumblr @lustfulpasiphae


	4. J'taime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is entirely too old to learn languages--has never seen merit in the endeavor--but sweet Andraste, he wants to know what "J'taime" means.

"And what do these mean?"

Mira wrinkles her nose under the gentle tracing of his fingertip. "Who says they mean anything at all? Mayhap I just liked the look of them."

He pulls back a bit, head cocked at an incredulous angle, brows crooked. His thumb pauses, warm and callused, pressed to the line bisecting her lower lip. "Tawny, everything you do means something." His lips curl at the scarred corner, ruefully. "I've never seen you once move a token on the War Table without thinking of at least three ways your decision could come back to haunt you--and then doing it anyway."

Her eyes widen owlishly, then narrow again, her gaze sliding away from his. "Charming bullshit," she says dismissively. "Everyone knows I'm a feckless reactionary."

His thumb drags at her lip, pulling it down a bit, parting her, so that when he ducks his head, he can lick very tenderly into her mouth, tasting her. "Who says these dastardly things? Shall I call them out on the practice field for you?"

A huff of a laugh, her golden eyes peeking back at him sidelong, but her posture is still evasive. "You're giving me entirely too much credit, Cullen. You've seen the way I play chess. Not a strategic bone in my body. One of these days my carelessness will end in tragedy."

She has this way of threading darkness through off-handed comments, of stepping all over herself, that worries him to his core--and reminds him entirely too much of himself, when he was younger and still a walking disaster after Kinloch, or more recently when the lyrium is gnawing at his mind. "You watch everything. And you are constantly thinking--weighing. I see it, behind these gorgeous eyes of yours." He brushes his thumb over and up the curve of her cheek, tracing it along the sinuous lines beside her left eye. "Anyone who underestimated you would be making a grave mistake."

Mira stares off into the corner of his shambles of a bedchamber, golden eyes half-lidded and distant. Once, Elyse had been the only person to "watch her watching," to find her sitting before the fire, late into the night, staring emptily into the flames, overthinking, caught deep in her own mind. The only person to touch her, to anchor her, to bring her back out of herself, to know that the gentle hand on her shoulder, the tender stroke of her hair, would be all that kept her from walking into the forest and disappearing sometimes. Cullen sees entirely too much for someone who cares not a whit for the Game or the calculated machinations of nobles.

"I only see you," he husks quietly, his stroking fingertips still moving and exploring gently, tracing the shell of her ear, the long column of her throat, and Mira realizes she's spoken part of her thought aloud.

Andraste wept, what has she done to deserve this? She turns her head on the pillow, staring up into his eyes searchingly, seeing beyond the shadows darkening his tired skin to the shadows deep behind his eyes. "What do you want from me?"

Cullen isn't certain he understands what she's asking--but she is the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste, she is feared and worshipped and hated and revered. But she is also a woman. He knows it's his simplistic Fereldan upbringing, but he has always imagined Andraste the woman--the woman behind the Prophet and Redeemer. As a child he hated Maferath, hated his faithlessness, that the man betrayed his one charge--to love the woman, as the Maker couldn't love his Bride. Mira is no Andraste--and she would be burning mad at the very thought--and Cullen certainly doesn't fancy himself her Maferath, but all he wants is to love her, to be by her side.

He leans down, brushing his lips down the bridge of her nose, pressing them lightly to her lips. "I only want you."

Her eyes burn, a single tear escaping to make its way through the crease at the corners of her eyes and down her temple to disappear into her hairline. "Who gave you permission to be so fucking perfect?" she rasps, voice tight with sudden emotion.

Maker's breath, the sharp edges of her can cut him to the quick. "Who's giving whom too much credit now?" he asks gently, his thumb stroking idly in the hollow of her throat, up to the line tattooed along its length.

She takes his hand in hers, and he stills, watchful, wondering if he has mis-stepped and she will push him away. Her index finger aligns along the back of his, pressing the pad of his finger to her lower lip and the line that begins there. "One secret, then. For your truth." She guides his finger down the length of the line, adds two fingers to either side to touch the dots of ink flanking. "For loyalty. May my tongue be stricken with the Maker's silence if I should speak against a friend."

_Elyse's dark cinnamon eyes studying her face, her small slender fingers tracing where the marks of the bow should go, to guide her arrow, and the lines along her nose, to mark her as a survivor. The tender touch of a fingertip against her lower lip. "My faithful friend. There is a darkness in your blood, a darkness in your father, but all will look upon you and know--where you walk there is Light, and the Maker's Grace. You will not falter, you will not fail."_

_The memory of her own uncertainty, the resistance in her heart. "Elyse, I don't--I don't have your faith."_

_And the small woman's gentle, cryptic smile. "You are my faith, Tawny."_

He knows she isn't devout--she has always resisted the religious Andrastian fervor accompanying her various titles. The implicit faith of this oath surprises him. Not the sentiment--he has heard about her protective attitude in the field from Cassandra, who always seems to be startled by the unthinking selflessness at the heart of their Inquisitor, as if she hadn't sent him into a hidden path with her hopes for the survival of Haven while she went without hesitation to what should have been her death…

But she never speaks of the Maker except to take His name in vain or refute his claim on her. Her golden eyes are on his, as though she can read his thoughts, and a wry smile curves her lips. "O Creator, see me kneel: For I walk only where You would bid me, stand only in places You have blessed…Sing only the words You place in my throat…" She sings it sweetly, with the slightest hint of a burr in the back of her throat; he can feel the thrum of her voice, the vibrato on the rising notes against his fingertips. He's heard her sing before, but he doubts she remembers, and it steals the breath from him the same now. Those golden eyes are still watchful, expectant.

He leans down again, letting her see a glimpse of his wicked smile before he takes his hand away and places his lips against the hollow of her throat, lapping the salt from her skin, tasting her as if she is a banquet. He hums a bar, presses a kiss to her pulse, begins a slow, soft drag of lips up her skin. "My Maker, know my heart, take from me a life of sorrow, lift me from a world of pain," he nips just below her ear, drawing a ragged gasp from her in counterpoint to his crooning tenor, laves it tenderly with the tip of his tongue, breathes the last bit in a dark purr against her earlobe: "Judge me worthy of Your endless pride."

She draws one knee up alongside his hip, slings her leg over his, her calf gripping him with sudden need. "Cullen." She moans his name with all the fervor that most people reserve for the Chant.

He suckles tenderly on her earlobe, traces the tip of his tongue delicately along the whorls and curves. His next words send a breath that tickles along the damp, driving a bone-deep shudder through her body. "Tell me I have sung to Your approval."

"Cullen!" She tightens her calf, throws an arm around his shoulders, pulls him down against her, her hips arching into him, a tight cry forced from her lips at the heat and hardness of his length pressed suddenly against the soft flesh of her mons.

Cullen bites his lip on his own groan, whispers, unable to hold back the smirk, "O Maker, hear my cry…"

She throws her head back, golden eyes wild and a bit deadly. "You smug bastard!" Her nails dig into his shoulders and she rocks sharply up against him, eyes intent, sees the flare of his nostrils and the widening of his pupils and does it again, and this time the curved length of him presses between her lips, notched in the slick heat of her, and his eyes fall shut. She rakes her nails--gently, just enough to feel, she doesn't like to hurt him if she can help it, she knows the lyrium withdrawal is never far--up the nape of his neck, tugs lightly at his curls. "Look at me,  _mon coeur_."

His lips are slightly parted, the smirk defeated by the slick slide of her against him. His amber eyes are reduced to a sliver of burning whiskey by the black wells of his pupils. Mira rolls her hips again, to hear his breath stutter.

"Cullen." Her fingertips stroke his curls, tender but needing. "Fuck me."

"Maker's breath," he gasps, rutting against her hard, feeling the swollen bud at the apex of her slit rubbing against the curve of his cock. She shudders and her fingers tighten in his hair. He forces himself to hold her eyes as he slips one broad hand beneath her hips, angling her and pulling back until the swollen, weeping head is nestled between her lips, pressed throbbingly to the mouth of her cunt.

"Please," she whines softly, brokenly, her hips writhing.

He is hers, body and heart and soul--he can only obey. The stretch of her is agonizing as he sheathes himself with one slow thrust, until her soft lips are pressed tight to his groin and he can be no deeper within her heat. There are unstrung symphonies in her eyes, in the curve of her spine against his hand like a bow; the need for her pierces his heart.

"My love," he breathes softly. He leans down over her, so that his lips can press to hers, can trail down her chin to her throat. Maker help him, he loves the quiver that runs through her whenever his lips touch her throat. "My heart." He is pressed to her, within her, at an angle that makes her writhe, grinding her swollen bud against the hilt of his cock, and quick, breathless, panting cries wing from her. Her fingers tighten in the hair at the nape of his neck.

He withdraws, thrusts again, long and slow, controlling his own tremors of need. 'Fucking' she calls it, but he makes love to her. He thinks he will love her forever, if she will let him. His hand slips between their sweat-slickened bodies, finding a counterpoint to his rhythm, and he drags his thumb in a rough circle around her swollen bud, presses down, taps lightly, never the same motion twice in a row.

Her hips are loose, her body open to him, but her legs are tight around him, demanding. Her hands streak up along the curve of her body beneath him--she is tightly arched, and her fingers pinch and pull roughly at her nipples. He flicks his thumb against her, and a cry tears from her throat. She is murmuring, gasping, pleading, and he can barely make out words, but she is speaking Orlesian.

" _Je suis a toi, plait, plait_ ," she whispers brokenly, and he seizes on ' _plait_ ,' he has heard that before, but is it a plea or gratitude, he can't remember which--

Another sharp cry and her slick cunt spasms around him, clutching and drawing him deep. He shouts, thrusting hard, feels like she is pulling his soul out through his cock, draining every last drop of him. His hips pulse in tight, grinding circles, he is throbbing deep inside her, filling her--Maker's mercy, he wants her full, wants her ripe with his child, wants her forever, every thought is madness but he can't help it.

"Mira, Tawny, my love." He lowers himself trembling to her side, his thumb gently chasing the last throbbing ache of her orgasm, stroking gently, so gently, through the slick of their fluids, feeling her thighs twitching against his hips from the surfeit of sensation.

She is still babbling, breathlessly, brokenly, gasping for breath, her eyes tightly shut and sweat or tears glistening at her temples in the candlelight. He presses his lips tenderly to her breast, nuzzling. He is entirely too old to learn languages--has never seen merit in the endeavor--but sweet Andraste, he wants to know what " _J'taime_ " means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Je suis a toi -- I’m yours
> 
> J'taime -- I love you
> 
>  
> 
> Find me on twitter and tumblr @lustfulpasiphae


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